THE RECORD books show James Milner’s most prolific season with Aston Villa came in 2009-10 although the club’s nearly-but-not-quite campaign proved to be a signal for him to move on.
Milner at 23 won the PFA Young Player of the Year Award after scoring 12 goals and assisting 16 more in 49 appearances for the club.
Villa repeated the previous season’s sixth place finish in the Premier League (and qualified for Europe again), reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup and were runners-up to Man Utd in the League Cup final (Milner scored a fifth minute penalty but United prevailed 2-1).
Milner also collected the fans’ player of the year accolade that season, after he had successfully moved into a central midfield role, playing alongside Stylian (Stan) Petrov.
“I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “I used to play there a bit when I was younger and obviously played a lot of football out wide since then.
“But I’ve enjoyed it immensely moving into the middle and, having Stan in there, you just seem to get a bit more of the ball and get involved a bit more. I’m still learning the role but enjoying it.”
In March that year, with Villa in contention for a top four finish, manager Martin O’Neill positively drooled about the player after an outstanding second-half performance at Wigan when he fired in a winner on the hour.
“It was an extraordinary performance by a really good player,” said O’Neill. “Since he has stepped into central midfield his game has improved tenfold and he continues to go from strength to strength.
“When you play wide you depend on other people giving you the ball to get into the game but when you have got that determination and energy, you might as well use it in the centre of the field.
“It is something we have been crying out for, a midfielder scoring double figures, and he has been sensational.”
O’Neill walked out on Villa five days before the start of the 2010-11 season and it turned out Milner’s imminent move to Manchester City was the cause. O’Neill later explained that he over-reacted to an about-turn by Villa owner Randy Lerner.
He told the Claret & Blue podcast Lerner had promised to keep Milner and bring in Scott Parker to play alongside him, but within 24 hours the plan was ditched and Milner was sold to City for £26m, with Stephen Ireland going in the opposite direction as a makeweight.
“I have to say I took these things too personally,” said O’Neill. “I brought James into the football club, he’d been out on loan at Villa and done fine but I changed him from wide right to central midfield and he was fantastic for us.”
However, Milner’s rationale for wanting the move was explained in an interview with The Guardian. “Villa came very close to winning a trophy, they had a lot of good players but were just that tiny bit short of getting to the next level,” he said.
“They needed to bring players in but it became clear from Randy Lerner that Villa might have to sell to buy. It made me think City had a better chance of progressing and challenging for trophies. I had a great time at Villa and improved as a player, but City is a club going places very quickly.”
Ever the professional, Milner played for Villa in the opening Premier League match of the season while the finer details of his move were completed and he was even applauded off at the end having been booed at the start of it.
In another edition of the Claret & Blue podcast, Villa’s former chief executive Paul Faulkner said: “I remember that game and 10 or 15 minutes in there was a 50-50 ball and he went in and it felt like all of Villa Park held its breath but he won the ball, got up and ended up scoring as well and went off a few minutes later to a standing ovation.
“There was that sense of ‘What an individual he is’. He did it for Villa and the fans, because he is a decent person.”
Faulkner added: “His attitude, approach and what he brings on the football pitch – and still does – he’s an amazing guy. He’s a straightforward, stand-up guy and absolutely decent.
“What a player, he would do anything for the team.”
Milner’s first spell in Villa’s colours had come in the 2005-06 season after Newcastle manager Graeme Souness had made it plain Milner wasn’t his kind of player.
Former Toon midfielder Nolberto Solano wanted to return to his old club from Villa so Milner’s old Leeds boss David O’Leary, by then in charge at Villa Park, insisted any deal should include Milner on loan in return.
“Nobody at the club wanted Nobby to leave. So, we initially rejected Newcastle’s offer,” O’Leary told the club website. “But Nobby made it very clear that he wanted to leave. There is clearly no point in trying to hold on to a player under those circumstances.
“We were determined to ensure his departure benefited Aston Villa. We held out for a fee that reflects what we paid to Newcastle and also insisted that James Milner was included in the package.
“When you consider what we’ve got in return for a player who wanted to be elsewhere, we’ve definitely got the best of the deal.”
Milner didn’t take long to get on the scoresheet, scoring in a 1-1 draw at home to Spurs. Three days later he scored twice in an 8-3 mauling of Wycombe Wanderers in the League Cup.
But any hopes of Villa finishing in the top half of the Premier League were dashed by them only registering 10 league wins all season. They finished third from bottom of the table and O’Leary was sacked. Shortly after, the chairman, ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis, ended a 38-year association with Villa by selling the club to Lerner and O’Neill was appointed manager.
It seemed like Newcastle had finally agreed to let Milner join Villa on a permanent basis for £4m but they then pulled out of it at the last minute.
“They accepted a bid for me to go to Aston Villa on deadline day after I’d be on loan there. I went down to Villa, offer had been accepted and then Martin O’Neill said the plug’s been pulled on it,” Milner recalled.
“I started laughing thinking he was joking, he said ‘No, they’ve changed their minds’. So, I went back up to Newcastle, they’d changed their mind.”
O’Neill told the club’s website: “We are disappointed because of the lateness of the decision,”
“Newcastle are entitled to do what they did, but we are disappointed because it came so late in the day.”
Milner duly returned to Newcastle and became a regular but a permanent switch to Villa eventually happened in August 2008, by then the fee was £12m. He signed a month after Steve Sidwell arrived at Villa Park from Chelsea and was Villa’s eighth summer signing.
O’Neill said: “I am not a kid in a sweet shop but this is an opportunity for us. James has got a great spirit about him and I definitely think his best years are in front of him. It was disappointing two years ago not to sign him when we thought the deal was done and dusted but it is nice to have got it all sorted this time.”
Milner expressed his relief that the deal had finally gone through and believed the club was capable of breaking into the top four. “The top four is tough to get into. But a club will get in there at some point and Villa are in as good as position as any,” he said.
O’Neill’s side had a terrific season up to the beginning of February and, after 25 games, were in third place in the Premier League, on course to qualify for the Champions League. But a dreadful run of form in the final third of the season, with only two wins in 13 matches, saw them drop down to sixth by the end.
As mentioned at the top of this piece, fortunes would change in 2009-10 and Milner in particular was earning plaudits for his performances in central midfield.
At the beginning of the season, he had made his full England debut (going on as a sub for Ashley Young in a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands under Fabio Capello) having played for his country at all age group levels from under 16s up, including a record 46 appearances for the under 21s. Over the next seven years, Milner won 61 caps.
Following a man-of-the-match showing in Villa’s 6-4 Carling Cup semi-final, second-leg victory over Blackburn Rovers, Milner declared: “The next step for this side is to win a trophy. The owner and the manager have done a great job and the club has changed massively since the last time I was here on loan.
“Hopefully we are improving year by year and we can show that in the league but also to get a piece of silverware would be great.”
Milner was hoping he’d have a better League Cup final experience than in 1996 when, as a Leeds United fan, United lost 3-0 and their supporters jeered manager Howard Wilkinson at the end. “I was supporting Leeds. I was only 10 and remember being disappointed,” he said.
In parallel lines 
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